


A long time ago in the future...

by ebonyfeather



Category: Primeval
Genre: AU- twist on canon, Character Death Fix, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:04:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonyfeather/pseuds/ebonyfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philip's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

Philip Burton had recognised Matt for what he was the moment he met him. There was just something off about him, about his behaviour, something that he was sure that no one else had noticed. But he had. After all, it took one man out of time to recognise another.

 

He had been here for nearly twenty years, establishing a life for himself, an identity, just as he suspected that Matt had. What Matt’s reason for being here was, however, he had no idea. His own was simple; he wanted to be somebody. Once he had discovered this place, found out that his knowledge was worth something here, he knew that this was the place for him.

 

He had Helen Cutter to thank for it really. If he hadn’t seen her sneaking around, followed her, his curiosity aroused by the oddness of her clothing, he would never have seen the anomaly. To a young man of nineteen, tired of the monotony of everyday life and dull lectures and a family he had little contact with, the anomaly presented a thrill. When he saw her step through it, he had no idea what to think. It had to be some kind of a trick, an illusion, but to what end? Hidden away in a utility shed, the illusion wasn’t going to get much attention if indeed that was the aim.

 

Philip had returned time and time again in the hope of seeing the strange woman re-emerge, spending most of the following week waiting, watching. He must have fallen asleep, sitting on the low wall near to the shed, just out of sight so that he could remain hidden from her, because he was jolted awake by the feel of someone pressing a knife to his throat.

 

“Who do you work for?”

 

Philip tried to struggle out of her grasp but she merely held him tighter and pressed on the blade.

 

“I’m at University-”

 

“So why are you watching me?”

 

“I saw you go through the light… What is it?”

 

The knife was removed and she slid it into her boot, leaving him rubbing at the stinging cut on his neck. It wasn’t deep enough to do any serious damage, but it still hurt. Now that he could move, he turned to look at her. She was wearing the same khaki combat trousers and shirt as she had been the last time but they were a bit grubbier, a couple of tears that hadn’t been there before. She was limping slightly, and he could see traces of blood on her trousers around one of the tears as though whatever had made it had cut through her skin as well. Her hair was longer too, as though she’d been away for a few months not a few days.

 

“How long have you been gone?”

 

The woman smiled. “Clever boy; you’ve worked out what it is. What’s your name?”

 

“Philip.”

 

“I’m Helen. And in answer to your question, the last time I was here was five months ago. I needed a safe place in a hurry and this seemed like as good a place as any.”

 

~.~

 

Helen stuck around for a while longer, inviting herself to stay in Philip’s dorm room without really giving him the chance to object. Not that he would have, as Helen seemed to have invited herself into his bed, too. But she had no intention of staying. A week later, Philip awoke to find the bed beside him empty and cool, Helen’s meagre belongings gone. He wondered what he would have done had she told him that she was leaving: Would he have asked to go with her? Asked her to stay? He had known from the start that she wouldn’t, though. It wasn’t about the age difference- she had never cared about that- or anything else; she had already said that it was a chance to stop running and rest for a while, and have a bit of fun in the meantime, and he could accept that.

 

He had gone to his lectures that day, drifting through them and barely paying attention to what was happening around him. His mind was still working through the possibilities. Helen had talked about places beyond his imagination, of creatures he had only read of in books and of times past. That night, he found thinking about the anomaly once more and it was then that he made a decision.

 

Collecting a bag full of belongings, Philip returned to the anomaly. Helen had said that it led to a modern era, about eighty years into his past… If he didn’t do this, he knew that he would regret it for the rest of his life.

 

~.~

 

When he first arrived, a stranger in an old city, he hadn’t known where to turn. This place was vaguely familiar, but the last time he had seen it, there had been new buildings in place of ones that were here now. He could find his way around, but there were so many changes, just little things that made the whole experience so disorientating. Having nowhere to go, Philip had spent his first few nights sleeping in doorways and on benches, stealing leftover food from plates left on cafeteria tables or the bins outside.

 

There were times when he had considered going back through the anomaly, of giving up, but he just couldn’t do it. He’d come this far and he wasn’t willing to just pack up and go back to that dreary existence. And while this place was rather technologically backward to what he was used to, and many of the cultural and social customs seemed so old fashioned and confused the hell out of him, it was still fascinating. It was like stepping into the pages of a history book, being able to reach out and touch the past. How could he walk away from that?

 

It had been during those first few days he realised that here, his knowledge could be power. Scientific breakthroughs that were commonplace in his time were revolutionary here. Technology that he carried with him, that he had taken for granted, could be cannibalised and re-invented. With a bit of fast talking and some convincing fabrications, not to mention a handful of money pick pocketed from passers by, he had been able to find somewhere to stay; it was just a dingy room in a house owned by a man who was willing to take cash in hand and ask very few questions, but it was enough. A steady amount of money was harder to come by, as he had no documentation in order to find work, and no money to pay someone to create the documentation he needed. It was a vicious circle, but that was where Mike came in.

 

Mike was his landlord, but it turned out that he also knew where to get things that people needed; he knew folks, he’d said. Philip had seen the way that the man looked at him, even seen him spying through the keyhole a couple of times while he was undressing, but far from being outraged, he decided that he could use that to his advantage. Mike’s tastes ran toward younger, inexperienced, men, and so Philip played up to that. He allowed Mike to lure him into his area of the house one night, let him think that he was doing the seducing.

 

It wasn’t too bad. Mike liked having his dick sucked, liked calling Philip every filthy name he could think of while he was on his knees. And if Philip played it shy, objected for a while as though he needed persuading to do it, then Mike seemed to like that even better. It became a regular arrangement; although Philip kept his room, he found himself spending most of his nights in Mike’s bedroom, in Mike’s bed. In exchange, Mike didn’t charge him rent, and spoke to a few of his old friends who provided Philip with some necessary paperwork. Of course, those favours demanded a little more than sucking Mike’s cock, but it wasn’t too much of a hardship. Mike may have had a good few years on him, and not be much to look at, but the man treated him well, never getting rough with him, and he was a damn good fuck.  

 

Low wage jobs in shops and factories had provided him with little difficulty, the employers’ needing only basic details from him and he doubted that they had even bothered to check those. All he needed was a birth certificate and a national insurance number, both things that Mike had managed to find people to obtain for him, and a bank account. Once he had money, then he could start to move away from that, into better accommodation, a better job once he had some kind of employment history.

 

Philip sometimes wondered what everyone back home had thought when he disappeared. Had they even missed him? He hadn’t been close to his family at the best of times, his mother having left when he was a baby and his father preferring his sport-playing brothers over him, the studious youngest child, who would rather be studying or working on his computer than going out into the cold and kicking a ball around a muddy field for hours on end. He had never fitted in there, and had been glad to get away when he could move into the University dorms but he hadn’t really fitted in there, either. In fact, he could only name one or two people who would actually care that he wasn’t there any longer.  

 

This may not be perfect, but it was better than home.

 

~.~

 

Twenty years later, Philip Burton was someone. He had attended University here, flying through the course with outstanding grades, on a work-study paid for by his employer at the software development company he currently worked for. They had been so impressed by his skill at solving problems that they had been willing to overlook the fact that he had no formal education. School could be explained away as being home schooled, and a few forged exam result certificates weren’t hard to create.

 

And throughout that time, he had been registering the patents for a number of advances he developed from his own time, dumbing them down just enough so that they were viable, but leaving enough to upgrade them with in the future when he needed more money. With his earnings from a handful of those patents, he had enough to begin Prospero, and he had watched it grow astronomically ever since.

 

He had also watched the anomalies. He knew all about the ARC through a source at the Home Office- it was one of the perks of being a rich; people didn’t often say no to him. He kept track of the project out of curiosity, but they never discovered the anomaly that had brought him here. It was still active, he found when he went back to check, answering the question of why Helen Cutter had felt safe enough to stay all of those years ago. She had known it wouldn’t close and leave her stranded.

 

Philip hadn’t spoken to her since he came to this time although he had caught sight of her once or twice, or he thought he did. It was just a familiar face in the street, one woman among a crowd that he wasn’t sure was Helen. When he turned back for a second look, however, she was already gone. This was where she belonged, though, her own time. Of course, she would never remember him; he had gone back to a time when she was much younger, before she had even met him.

 

Out of curiosity, he checked up on her from time to time, watching as she and her husband, Nick, joined the teaching staff at the University. He had seen the reports of her disappearance and for a time wondered if he should tell Professor Cutter where she had gone, but that could cause problems, he thought. Who knew, but his informing them of the anomalies at the wrong time could prevent her from going through and meeting him. The last twenty years of his life, of his success, could vanish in the blink of an eye.

 

She came back, though, nearly eight years after her disappearance. By that time, the ARC had been established but although she had knowledge of the anomalies, she seemed more inclined to hinder them than help. Every so often over the next couple of years, her name came up in the reports he received about the ARC. Sometimes she was under arrest, other times breaking in, but usually when there was trouble.

 

Sometimes he wondered if this older, time-travelling Helen would remember a bored kid from the 22nd century, if she would be glad to see him, but he never found out. Almost three years after the ARC project began, she was lost in the past, along with three others, opinions divided on whether any of them were still alive. The ARC project shut down, the government no longer having sufficient confidence in it to continue to fund it, the original team members now either dead, lost or resigned.

 

He couldn’t let that happen. Whatever time had passed since that week, long ago, in the future, he still felt a certain gratitude to Helen Cutter for giving him this life and without the project what chance did she have of being found? Philip had no illusions of her returning and them having an emotional reunion, but he knew that if he was in her place, lost, he would want to know that there was someone still looking for him.

 

Besides, he had been working on a way of using the power generated by the anomalies as an energy source. New Dawn would be the biggest breakthrough this world had seen but he couldn’t do it without the ARC. He needed data from naturally forming anomalies in order to convert that information into what he needed to generate anomalies. The trouble was that very rarely did they merely appear without letting some kind of creature loose at the same time. He needed someone to deal with those so that he could get on with his work. Their detection equipment would be useful too. Oh, sure, it wouldn’t take him long to replicate it, but why bother when someone else already had it and could monitor it for you too?

 

So, the seed was planted in a few impressionable minds, letting them think that re-starting the ARC was their idea. They approached him within weeks after his contact at the Home Office helpfully suggested that it might be a project he would be interested in, all at his instruction of course.

 

He didn’t have any input into the interview process; he couldn’t afford to let them know just how long he had been observing this project. He was there to supply the funding and let the experts deal with the rest, and he was content with that. Which was why, when he met Matt Anderson on his first visit to the new ARC building, he got a shock.

 

Matt never noticed anything out of the ordinary about Philip, or if he did he never let it show on that ever-stoic face of his, but from the moment they met Philip knew that the man belonged in this time about as much as he did. It was nothing overt, but something about him just seemed so familiar, as though he was hiding something.

 

It would pay to keep a closer eye on the man, he decided.

 

The others wouldn’t be any trouble at all. Jessica Parker seemed pleasant enough, eager to please and adept at her job, if a bit scatterbrained. James Lester had the experience after running the ARC in its former incarnation and could easily be controlled if needs be. Becker, well, he had both the experience and the unquestioning loyalty of a former soldier. He seemed happy to do what he was told provided he was given a good supply of guns and the opportunity to shoot something on a regular basis. He also proved useful in distracting Matt, the two of them quickly becoming friends.

 

All of which left Philip free to continue his work without having to worry about the creatures.

 

~.~

 

Then, nearly six months after the new ARC was established, two of their lost team members returned. For Philip, their return was a distraction, one which served its purpose in continuing to keep Matt busy, and even better, it brought him Connor. He had intended from the start to offer Connor a job at Prospero, knowing that the lad could handle the work from reading his university reports and personnel files at the ARC. But then Connor had to go and argue his way back on to the team, didn’t he? Not that it mattered; it would just take a little longer, that was all. When eventually, Connor agreed to work with him, he was delighted.

 

Philip enjoyed spending time with Connor as they worked or compared notes, the lad was so eager to participate in his project. His enthusiasm for science was equalled to Philip’s own, if only Philip could get him away from the rest of the ARC team. They were stifling his creativity and they never realised it; with a mind like his, he should be focussing on the research not wasting his time running around after dinosaurs. Let the others do that.

 

He wished he could get Connor away from Abby, too. It was plain to see that they weren’t right for each other, that the only reason that they were together was due to their time, just the two of them, in the Cretaceous. Connor was brilliant, and he deserved someone who would share his interests, who would challenge him mentally, not someone like her. She was constantly trying to pull him away from his work, or mocking him for his love of science fiction programmes, ignoring him when the feeling took her and still expecting him to follow her like an adoring puppy, but Connor couldn’t see it.

 

When Connor finally came to his senses, Philip would be waiting. And if that took too long, well, he could always give Abby a little push to get her out of the way. As he’d been waiting patiently ever since the pair of them returned to the ARC, ever since that day when Connor had met him, looking so excited to meet him. That feeling when Connor had approached him, sounding so starstruck, had been the highlight of his year. It happened all of the time- when you had money, there was never a shortage of flunkies around who would fawn all over you because they thought that there was something in it for them. Connor was different. He didn’t care about how much Philip was worth; he was excited about inventions and scientific discoveries, not money.

 

Philip sometimes thought that Connor was interested in him but he had never worked up the nerve to find out. Connor was younger than him for one thing- about a hundred years if they were being technical about it- and didn’t know if something like that would matter. And there was the fact that he was technically Connor’s boss. If he made any kind of advances, it would seem as though he was taking advantage, whereas if Connor made the first move…

 

Unfortunately, the lad seemed completely oblivious to anything except the Maitland girl.

 

So, first, he had to get Abby to give up and move on. Deciding, he picked up his phone

 

“April, I need you to do something for me…”

 

~.~

 

April, it turned out, was the perfect woman for the job. In the space of a few short weeks, she had managed to successfully edge Abby out of Connor’s life. When she pushed to know what he was working on, April had planted the seeds of doubt in his mind that she didn’t trust him, making him see how self-centred she was with regard to her priorities. Then the debacle with the new security system had given Philip a perfect excuse to give her that extra nudge, announcing that he intended to get rid of the menagerie. He knew how she would react, and she had done just as predicted, putting them before Connor yet again. If he was being honest, he rather liked some of the animals so he would never have done anything to them, not really; he fully intended to change his mind and rescind the order to close the menagerie at a later date. He just needed to provoke Abby, to highlight a few of the flaws in their relationship.

 

As it turned out, however, all he had really needed to do was to leave it up to April. The woman had been spending more time with Abby, befriending her as she had Connor, but this was different. She wasn’t Abby’s assistant, wasn’t making nice in order to gain her trust; she seemed to genuinely like Abby. The two of them became firm friends, and Philip only realised just how close when he arrived at the ARC one morning to find Connor curled up in a chair in the break room. At some point, someone had covered him with a blanket and put a cup of tea on the table next to him, but it was long cold.

 

“Connor?” Philip reached out a hand to gently shake his shoulder.

 

Connor’s eyes opened and he blinked at Philip sleepily for a moment before he sat up straight.

 

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t be sleeping here, but I hadn’t got anywhere else to go.”

 

Philip went and made them both a fresh cup of tea and sat down beside him. “I thought you were staying with Jess?”

 

“I was, but me and Abby… we’re not exactly together any more. I’ll find somewhere else today, I promise.”

 

This should be his moment, the one he’d been waiting for, but when he looked at Connor now all he could feel was guilt. The lad looked thoroughly miserable.

 

“What happened? I thought that you two were happy.”

 

Connor looked up as one of the technicians came into the break room in search of tea and shook his head.

 

“Come on; I’ll drive you to my house. You can take a shower, get yourself sorted out.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

On the drive over, Connor was silent, sitting and staring out of the window the whole way. It wasn’t until they pulled into the driveway of Philip’s town house that he even reacted. As he was making them both some breakfast, Connor emerged from the bathroom, his hair damp from the shower and the same clothes on once again.

 

“I probably owe you an explanation,” he began, but Philip shook his head.

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

Connor nodded. “I do, because of what I’m going to ask afterwards,” he said. “Abby told me last night that she cheated on me and we had this big argument. I can’t believe I was so stupid! I mean, I knew they were friends, and that Abby spent more time with her than she did with me recently, but I never thought that she was into women, much less April. They hated each other to begin with.”

 

“April?”

 

Well, that wasn’t exactly what he’d planned…

 

“Can you tell her I don’t need her as my assistant any more? I don’t want to have to work with her; it’s going to be bad enough working with Abby.” Connor groaned and ran a hand over his face. “And Jess; she heard the whole thing.”

 

Great, Philip thought. When had it all got so messy? All he’d wanted was for Connor to choose him, not to completely destroy him in the process.

 

“Well if you need a place to stay, I have two extra rooms. Well, one. The other one is currently filled with an embarrassingly extensive collection of comic books. If you would like the other room, however, it’s yours as long as you need it.”

 

Connor actually smiled at that. “I think you had me at comic books,” he joked. His smile faded. “Really, I do appreciate it. I won’t be here for too long; I’ll start looking for somewhere straight away.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Philip assured him. “I would be glad of the company.”

 

~.~

 

Having Connor around was both a blessing and a curse. Philip enjoyed the companionship, the house feeling lived in now that there was more than just him in it. Connor shared Philip’s interests and love of comic books, though their tastes in television shows and films varied somewhat. Philip had developed a fascination for the science fiction, of seeing what the writers had decided that their future would be like and comparing it to the reality. He could even cook, admittedly it usually consisted of spaghetti or pasta or some variation thereof, but it was pleasant. What he hadn’t accounted for was how hard it would be living with the object of his desire. He was trying, but that seemed to consist of a lot of cold showers and having to censor himself in case he said something wrong.

 

Two weeks after he moved in, as they sat at the dinner table, Connor paused in the middle of his dessert and asked,

 

“Have I done something wrong?”

 

“No, why?”

 

“You keep watching me, or you avoid me. I know you said I could stay, but maybe I shouldn’t. Jess said I could go back to her place; she was pretty pissed at Abby and told her to move out almost right after the fight.”

 

Philip set his spoon down and sighed. Now he’d ruined this as well.

 

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Connor; I have. I’m afraid that I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he began. “My sentiments toward you have become something more… intimate. I didn’t wish to make you uncomfortable, but it seems that my efforts have had just the opposite effect.”

 

Connor frowned for a moment, pondering this, before asking,

 

“What do you mean ‘intimate’?”

 

“I mean that I am attracted to you. I like you, Connor.”

 

“Oh. So was that was this was all about? You letting me stay here?”

 

Philip nodded. “I’ll be honest with you, Connor; half of me hoped that in staying here, spending time with me outside of the ARC, you might come to reciprocate that affection. The other half merely wanted to help you when you needed it, with no alternate agenda.”

 

There was another long silence before Connor said,

 

“I think I should move back to Jess’s.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

Not wanting to cause Connor any unease, Philip stayed away from the ARC for the next few days. Just as he’d said, Connor had moved out, going back to Jess’s flat. He’d been back before Philip got home that night, taking his belongings and dropping his key back through the letterbox once he’d locked the house again. Now the place felt too empty, Philip thought. It had been the first time he’d had anyone stay there with him here, and he liked it. Connor had been messy, and he talked too much when Philip was trying to read his newspaper on a morning, but Philip missed that.

 

Too bad he’d blown his chances then.

 

He couldn’t stay away forever, though. This morning he had a meeting with Lester scheduled, one that couldn’t be put off and there was no way he was asking Lester to come to the New Dawn buildings instead. So, he let himself in as quietly as possible and made his way through the ARC, only to come face to face with the very person he was trying to avoid as the door opened and Connor came barrelling out of Lester’s office, running straight into him.

 

Connor’s eyes widened briefly he started apologising and then made a run for it. Watching him disappear around the corner as though a pack of raptors was on his tail, Philip sighed.

 

Going into Lester’s office, he sat down.

 

“Well this is a surprise.”

 

He looked up at Lester. “You knew I was coming.”

 

“I meant the lack of thinly-veiled insults as you came in. I’m going to miss being patronised in our weekly meetings,” Lester told him sarcastically. At Philip’s lack of a snarky comeback, Lester sighed. “Please don’t in any way think that this makes us friends, but what’s wrong? Would your current mood have anything to do with a certain member of my team who fled as you arrived?”

 

If he thought about it, Lester would be the last person he would talk to about, well, anything, but he didn’t exactly have anyone else. He had colleagues, some of whom he considered in higher regard than others such as April, but he didn’t really have people that he could class as friends.

 

“He moved out.”

 

He knew that Lester was aware of where Connor had been staying for the past few weeks, just as he knew all about what had happened with Abby. Connor had lived with Lester for some time before his year in the Cretaceous and he still seemed to regard Lester as a friend and confidant.

 

“I know. What he didn’t tell me was why.” Lester smiled. “Did you shout at him for dropping clothes all over the floor? Or leaving the shower in a mess when he’d finished? Or for warming his socks in the breadmaker? He didn’t take your toaster apart and turn it into a robot, did he?”

 

Philip frowned. “He did that while he lived with you?”

 

“Yes. All except the last one; that was when he lived with Abby. She lost a few hairdryers and alarm clocks to the cause back in the early days of the ARC,” Lester said. “So, what did he do?”

 

“Nothing. I scared him away by expressing what was obviously an unwelcome interest in him.”

 

Lester sat forward, elbows on his desk. “I hope you know what you’re doing. That young man has been messed around by Abby, and Caroline, and caught in the middle of Stephen and Nick’s feud. He does not need you toying with his affections as well and so, if this is just some kind of passing fancy, back away and leave him be.”

 

Philip felt even more guilty then for being the one to instigate Connor and Abby’s break up, even if he hadn’t had a hand in what had happened with April and Abby. What he did know was that this wasn’t a passing obsession.

 

“My interest in him is genuine,” he said, “Though from his reaction, I doubt that he returns it.”

 

Lester smiled. “Give him some time. Let him work it out in his own head and he’ll come back to you if he so chooses,” he said before adding, “Just don’t hurt him.”

 

“You know, you’re getting dangerously close to sounding like you care, James.”

 

“Yes, well, let’s keep that between these four walls, shall we?” Lester said, picking up his paperwork. “Now, I believe we have business to discuss.”

 

~.~

 

Three days later, Philip found himself being unceremoniously pushed into Lester’s office, swearing under his breath as he realised that he and Lester weren’t alone. Connor sat in a chair opposite the desk, looking just as surprised.

 

“James?”

 

Lester shut the door and indicated for Philip to sit down.

 

“For some unfathomable reason, the two of you seem inclined to keep coming in here to discuss your problems with me, rather than each other,” Lester said, picking up his jacket and putting it on. “Now, I am going to go for a walk, and you two are going to stay here. Sit in silence if you want, or talk- it’s up to you. But maybe, afterwards, I might be able to get some bloody work done!”

 

With that, Lester let himself out, leaving Philip and Connor avoiding each other’s gaze in an uncomfortable silence. Part of him wanted to storm out after Lester, to berate him for meddling, but the rest…

 

“I’m sorry. I should never have said what I did,” he said, knowing that one of them was going to have to speak soon. “I miss the friendship we had, Connor. Can we just go back to that?”

 

Connor didn’t answer the question, instead pointing out, “Your timing sucked, you know that, right? I mean, what exactly did you think was going to happen? That once Abby and I weren’t together any more that I’d just move from her bed to yours?” he asked, pausing to look at Philip. “Not to mention the fact you blindsided me with it.”

 

“I regret that, but you asked what was wrong,” Philip told him, “and I didn’t want to lie to you.”

 

He had gone over that conversation in his mind countless times, wondering if he should have just made something up, but he didn’t think that Connor would want yet another person lying to him, keeping things from him.

 

Connor nodded decisively. “What you said in your kitchen… did you mean it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’m not moving back into your house; I don’t think that would be a good idea, so I’m going to stay at Jess’s,” Connor told him. “But maybe I could come over and we could watch a film or something? I used to enjoy doing that with you.”

 

Philip was still trying to work out exactly where this left him. Was Connor saying that they were friends? Was he saying that he wasn’t as adverse to the idea of something more as he had been at first?

 

“I could make us some dinner as well,” he suggested, testing the waters tentatively.

 

Connor nodded. “I’d like that. Philip, I’m not saying no- I mean, you’re a good looking bloke, and you’re cool to hang out with, and I like you- but after all this stuff with Abby, I just don’t want to rush into anything. That’s okay, right?”

 

“More than I expected,” Philip told him, a smile on his face.

 

~.~

 

The New Dawn project was coming along nicely. Connor had managed to create an anomaly in the lab, the first that they had successfully kept open for longer than a few seconds. It was a huge step forward; it brought them closer to Philip’s goal of a sustainable energy source, and for the first time he could see the dream becoming reality.

 

Of course, there were a few minor difficulties. They hadn’t taken in to account that while they were creating a controlled anomaly, where it led to wasn’t subject to those same conditions. The influx of insects that had swarmed through from goodness knows where had emphasised the flaw in their designs. They needed some way of either blocking the anomaly to anything on the other side, or find a way to shield it at this side against anything that came through, to keep it contained before it could cause any trouble.

 

Still, this was what science was all about, learning from each experiment and developing new theories based on the data collected. 

 

And no one got hurt, did they? Connor, Matt and Becker had found a way to stop them in time for Philip to abort the self destruct on the ARC, so that he could lift the lockdown. It would have killed a piece of him to have to press that button and incinerate the beetles, knowing that Connor was in there too, but he knew that he couldn’t let them get out into the world. As for Jessica, she had been fine after a shot of epinephrine and a couple of days rest, and the dead beetles had been swept up and disposed of successfully.

 

More importantly, they could learn from that mistake; he and Connor had been going over all of the notes and calculations, making sure that next time would be better. 

 

~.~

 

“You have to listen to me and stop this. What you’re doing is going to destroy everything!”

 

Philip gave Matt an exasperated look and edged around him to leave the room. “I really don’t have time for your fantastical nonsense, Mr Anderson.”  

 

He had already heard Matt’s story to Abby, telling her about the ruined future and that his experiments that would cause it, whispered in an empty room where he thought that no one else would overhear. It was just as well, then, that Philip had made sure to keep him under almost constant surveillance. He just knew that Matt was going to be trouble.

 

Now Matt had ambushed him in his office at the ARC, ranting about how careless he was being, spouting his ridiculous predictions of an apocalyptic future, but Philip had no intention of listening. He was from the future; he would have known if it had been overrun by predators, the human race almost extinct, wouldn’t he?

 

It was obvious what was going on; Matt had worked out where he was from and this was nothing more than a fit of petty jealousy. He hadn’t had the foresight to use what he knew in order to advance himself in this world, and now he wanted to take that away from Philip too by convincing the others with his ridiculous stories.

 

Well, Philip hadn’t survived here for the past twenty years by being that gullible. Matt could continue to try and sabotage him, but he would never succeed. 

 

~.~

 

Two days later, Connor approached his office, looking anxious, and Philip knew what was wrong before he even got inside and sat down. He had already seen Matt take Connor aside but he hadn’t heard what they said as he had been interrupted by a phone call. From the look on Connor’s face, however, he could guess. He had hoped that Matt would leave Connor out of this. Matt and his little band of followers hadn’t stopped in their efforts to balk him. He often saw Abby and Emily with him, drinking in every word and he could see that even Connor was getting concerned. He suspected that Connor would have joined their side earlier if not for Abby. He was still avoiding the young woman as much as possible and since Abby tended to be at Matt’s side a lot of the time, Connor wasn’t. Philip was glad about that; he didn’t want Connor to turn on him, not after everything that had happened.

 

But still, Anderson seemed to have them all believing his nonsense and, if not for Connor’s warning that they were planning something, he would have been taken completely unaware. He knew that they had been snooping through Connor’s laptop trying to find a way to ruin New Dawn; Connor had told him that they had after Matt confessed it during the bugs incident.

 

That had worked in his favour, actually, pushing Connor further away from Matt and Abby. He had been upset that they didn’t trust him to know what he was doing, offended, even angry, and had turned to Philip. As they talked, Connor had related the story that Matt had told him. It wasn’t anything that he hadn’t heard already, but the fact that Connor still trusted him was clear; if he didn’t, then he wouldn’t have told Philip that the others were spying on them. 

 

“Let me guess: Matt has been predicting the end of life as we know it again?”

 

Connor nodded. “What if he’s right, though? What if our experiments here are the start of a chain of events that causes this disaster?”

 

“They won’t.”

 

“But how can you be so sure?” Connor persisted. “He’s says he’s from the future, that he’s seen it with his own eyes.”

 

Philip made sure that the door was closed before sitting down opposite Connor. “So am I,” he said. “About eighty years into your future. So you see, I know that this supposed apocalypse doesn’t happen because I was born and lived the first twenty years of my life there and it was normal.”

 

He wondered for a moment whether or not he should have told Connor, after all, in his time here he had told no one else.

 

“What?”

 

“I was born in the future,” he repeated.

 

Connor just stared at him, and Philip could almost see the wheels turning in that mind of his as he tried to piece together what he had just learned with what he thought he knew from before.

 

“Did you get lost through an anomaly like Emily and Danny’s brother?”

 

Philip shook his head. “I knew exactly what I was doing when I stepped though that anomaly.” Seeing Connor about to ask another question, he held up a hand to stop him. “I will tell you the whole story, if you really want to hear it, but not here. You are the only person who knows about this and I would like it to remain that way.”

 

Connor nodded. “Tonight?” he asked eagerly. “I’ll bring pizza.”

 

Philip agreed, though he offered to get dinner himself, negotiating for Chinese food instead.

 

“Maybe his future is a different future,” Connor mused a few minutes later, the expression on his face slightly puzzled. “I mean, maybe by just coming here, he’s already stopped whatever was going to happen, or maybe you’ve made it happen by coming here when it would never have happened if you _hadn’t_ come here.”

 

“Connor, tonight, remember? I would rather discuss this away from the ARC.” After all, he reasoned, if he had this place bugged there was always a possibility that someone else had too.

 

~.~

 

That evening as he waited for Connor, Philip felt uncharacteristically anxious. He hadn’t told another person here about his origins and he couldn’t help but wonder if the knowledge that he wasn’t what Connor had thought would push the younger man away from him.

 

A knock on the door brought another wave of nervousness but it was only his food arriving. He was just paying the delivery driver when Connor approached the house.

 

“Good timing,” he said, stepping aside to let Connor inside. “Dinner just got here.”

 

Watching Connor bounce happily through to the kitchen, occasionally looking back to see if Philip was following, he smiled. Of course Connor wouldn’t mind; he would likely ask a million and one questions, but he wouldn’t mind. Seeing Connor glance back again, he briefly wondered if it was him that Connor was awaiting so eagerly, or dinner. Probably dinner, he decided as he poured them both a glass of wine and collected utensils and plates.

 

“You said you knew what you were doing when you came through the anomaly,” Connor said after eating the last forkful of his Chow Mein. “How did you know where it led? Or what it was? Does everyone know about the anomalies in the future?”

 

Philip laughed. “I’m impressed,” he said. “I expected your curiosity to kick in before we even started eating.”

 

“I was hungry,” Connor told him, glancing down at his empty plate and glass on the table. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. That’s not the only reason I wanted to come over.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Connor smiled, suddenly bashful. “I wanted… I was going to ask if I could have a second chance. I know I freaked out a bit when you told me… _you know_ … and you probably don’t want me any more, not like that, anyway, not after-”

 

“Connor?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Stop talking,” Philip told him, shifting closer to draw Connor into a kiss.

 

When he pulled back, Connor smiled. “Your beard tickles when you kiss me.”

 

“I’ll shave it off,” Philip offered immediately, but Connor shook his head.

 

“No, don’t do that. I like it; I think it’s sexy.” He paused before asking, “So you do still want me?”

 

“I could prove it further, if you like.”

 

Connor nodded. “Yes please.”

 

“And afterwards, I promise to tell you how I got here,” Philip added, laughing softly when he saw the relief on Connor’s face.

 

Despite his assurances that it wasn’t all he’d come here for, Connor’s curiosity wasn’t going to be satisfied until he’d heard Philip’s story. He could keep Connor sidetracked for a little while longer, though, he thought as he leaned in once more. He’d dreamed of this, of Connor’s lips against his, of the feel of Connor’s hands on him as they kissed. Philip had waited for this for a long time, this and more, but he wasn’t going to push and risk driving Connor away again. It appeared, however, that Connor had other ideas.

 

By the time they parted, Connor was practically in Philip’s lap, knelt astride his legs, his arms around Philip’s neck.

 

“Can I stay here tonight?” At Philip’s hesitation, Connor’s bravado faltered slightly. “If you want me to.”

 

“Connor, I have wanted nothing more than to strip you naked and have you, in my bed and in me, for a long time.”

 

Connor smirked. “Well don’t let me stop you.”

 

Philip stood abruptly, flashing Connor a predatory smile before manhandling him off the sofa and towards the stairs. The cheeky little sod made sure that Philip got a good view of his arse as he walked up them, adding a bit more swagger to his step than was necessary, his arse wiggling invitingly in front of Philip.  

 

“As tempting as that is, Connor, I’m a bit too old to be fucking on the stairs.”

 

“No you’re not,” Connor told him, turning as he mused, “Maybe we should add that to the list of things to prove later.”

 

“Maybe but, right now, you’re supposed to be in my bedroom,” Philip reminded him, hands on Connor’s hips to turn him around again, sending him on his way with a smack on the behind. When they reached his bedroom door, he caught up with Connor, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck before asking,

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Connor nodded.

 

“Well in that case, strip!” he said, giving Connor a playful shove into the room.

 

Connor’s smirk widened as he made a show of peeling off his shirt, and the t-shirt underneath, before moving his hands to his belt. Philip watched, unable to take his eyes off the sight as Connor hooked his thumbs into the waist of his jeans and slid them down, shimmying out of them and kicking them aside.

 

“Now what do you intend to do with me now?” he asked, standing there, his hands behind his back and looking at Philip through his eyelashes, an innocent-looking smile on his face.

 

It took all of Philip’s remaining self-control not to simply pounce on him, but he carefully removed his clothing, folding it onto the chair, before pulling Connor into his arms for another kiss. The younger man responded fiercely, pressing closer as he explored Philip’s now-exposed skin with light fingers. Philip shivered as Connor’s hands trailed down his spine before settling on his arse.

 

The last shred of Philip’s willpower snapped and he backed them toward the bed, turning so that Connor landed atop him.

 

“Please, Connor.”

 

This time there was no trace of teasing in Connor’s expression.

 

~.~

 

Philip awoke with a start, the feeling of a weight against him jolting him out of his sleep. Pushing the weight off him, he stopped when Connor made a sound in his sleep and shifted position. He was still curled around Philip, only now he wasn’t laying over Philip’s chest. At least he knew now what had woken him; the unfamiliar sensation of someone else in the bed with him. He didn’t usually let his lovers stay the night, hadn’t for a long time, not since Michael back in the days when he first arrived here.

 

Glancing at the clock he pressed a kiss to Connor’s forehead, gently rousing the younger man. He could hardly believe that Connor was here, that he’d stayed. As much as he wanted to lay here all day, however, he couldn’t. It was nearly six o’clock and if Connor wanted to have time to go back to Jess’s for fresh clothing before heading to the ARC, they would have to move soon.

 

Connor just burrowed further under the duvet.

 

Philip tried again, this time saying his name, but Connor still remained in oblivious slumber. If he’d had the guts he would have been a little more adventurous in his waking methods but it was still early in what he hoped would be a relationship for that. He wasn’t sure how Connor would react. So, instead, he got out of bed and pulled on a robe before heading for the kitchen.

 

“Connor. Time to get up. I made you some tea,” he said, returning a few minutes later, shaking Connor’s shoulder a little harder this time.

 

Eventually Connor’s tousled dark head appeared from under the duvet and he blinked sleepily at Philip. He took the tea offered and drank half of it before he paused. Then he sniffed the air, suddenly looking more alert.

 

“Can I smell bacon?”

 

Philip nodded. “There is bacon, eggs and toast if you get up now. You can have the shower first; I’ll go and get breakfast ready and have one later.”

 

As Connor finished his tea and dragged himself out of bed, he smiled. “Or, I could just share your shower after we’ve had breakfast…”

 

They were going to be late for work, Philip thought as he dropped his robe on the bathroom floor, stepping into the shower after they’d finished eating. Not that he really cared; where was the fun in being in charge if you couldn’t play hooky once in a while?

 

He let Connor draw him into his arms and kiss him under the shower spray, the warm water cascading over them both.

 

“Do you know how I wanted to wake you up this morning?” Philip asked, moving Connor to lean against the wall of the shower cubicle. Dropping to his knees in the confined space, he traced his hands over Connor’s wet skin, following the water droplets as they ran down his body before wrapping one hand around Connor’s cock. “I wanted to do this…” he said, leaning in to take the head between his lips.

 

He felt Connor’s hand on his head, steadying himself as Philip took him in deeper, teasing, sucking. As Connor’s fingers tangled in his hair, gripping, a muttered plea reached his ears, Philip smiled. He loved this, loved knowing that he was the one causing Connor to beg for more, bringing those soft groans from his lips.

 

“Philip!”

 

Philip would never get enough of hearing his name as Connor’s body tensed under his hands, hips thrusting forward as he came, pouring himself down Philip’s throat. Taking it all, he sat back on his heels and looked up at Connor. The other man was leaned against the wall, his face flushed, eyes closed and a happy smile on his face. When Philip stood, his eyes opened.

 

“Any time you feel like waking me up like that, please do,” he said, reaching for Philip again to draw him into another heated kiss.

 

They were almost two hours late when they finally arrived at the ARC, thanks to Connor’s insistence that he returned the favour when they got out of the shower. Of course, that had led to other things, all of which were infinitely more interesting than getting to work on time. As he walked through the detector room with Connor, Lester looked out from his office and raised an eyebrow, making a show of glancing at his watch.

 

“I think that was a hint that we had a meeting an hour ago,” Philip told Connor. “I’ll see you later?”

 

Connor nodded. “You’d better go; Lester hates being kept waiting.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The day of the convergence was fast approaching and he couldn’t let them derail his plans.

 

“So you never did tell me how you got here,” Connor reminded him when they both arrived back at Philip’s flat that evening. “You distracted me.”

 

Philip smiled. “Do you want me to apologise for that?”

 

“No.”

 

“But you’re still curious.”

 

Though his tone was still light, Connor was acting strangely tonight, Philip noted. It was as though he was waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to deliver bad news to him. He hadn’t said anything but Philip had seen it in his eyes. He just hoped that Matt hadn’t managed to get to him.

 

He made some tea and, as they sat down, mugs in hand, he started talking. It seemed strange telling someone else about his home, about that place so far away where he’d spent the first nineteen years of his life. He had debated telling Connor about Helen, too. It seemed odd talking about her with Connor, given the intimate, albeit brief, relationship they’d had. From what he’d seen and heard over the years, Helen was pretty much classed as ‘the enemy’. She’d killed Nick, made most of their lives a misery at one time or another. She was the reason that Connor had spent a year trapped in the past.

 

But he didn’t want to lie to Connor; it was the whole truth or nothing.

 

“Helen Cutter?” Connor interrupted in disbelief.

 

Philip nodded. “Yes. I knew nothing of her actions here- I don’t even know whereabouts in her timeline she came to my home. The first time I saw her, it was just a fleeting glance but something made me follow her,” he explained. “The second time, she was hurt. She said she needed somewhere to rest for a while, and she knew that my time was safe. Once she’d finished threatening me, she invited herself to stay with me and into my bed without bothering to ask me. She stayed for a while, told me wild stories about places and things that she had seen. She told me about the anomalies, and asked about my world, and then one morning I woke up and she was gone. No goodbye, not even a note. She had told me enough about the world through the anomaly in my time that I knew it would be safe for me, though, and so I packed up what I could carry and went through.”

 

For a moment, Connor was silent, and Philip wondered if he should have kept quiet about the nature of his association with Helen. Did it bother Connor that he’d been sleeping with the enemy, even if it had been a world away from where he was now? When Connor looked up, however, he saw that some of the tension he’d seen earlier had gone.

 

“That explains a few things,” Connor told him. “Danny found something when he followed Helen: her journal. Your name came up a few times. They told me today.”

 

Philip frowned as it registered why Connor had been acting strangely. “You thought that I was working with her?”

 

“Well can you blame me? I mean, as far as we knew, you two had never met!” Connor said defensively. “She was getting help from someone here- she must have been because she’d show up in cars, and with mobile phones and new clothes. She couldn’t get hold of stuff like that without money, and she sure as hell didn’t have any. Everything she had went to Nick when she was declared dead after being missing for so long.”

 

“I have to admit that when you put it like that, it doesn’t look too good for me,” Philip admitted. “But I never saw her again after I came here, nothing beyond a glimpse of her younger self in the street or her name in a report. Do you really think that I would have helped her? The woman was trying to wipe out the Human race!”

 

Connor sighed. “No, but then Matt says that’s what you’re doing at the moment with New Dawn.”

 

Philip had the urge to go and find Matt and punch him. “Connor, do you trust me?”

 

The younger man nodded.

 

“What we are doing is going to save lives, not destroy them. You just have to wait another couple of days and you’ll see. So will Matt.”

 

The doubt was there, though. He thought back to the stories that Helen had told him. She hadn’t exactly talked about it in great detail, but it was those stories which had first sparked the idea of New Dawn in his mind.

 

Maybe Matt was right. At the time, he hadn’t known just how deranged Helen had become- she had seemed quite same to him- but maybe she believed as Matt did, that his project would somehow destroy rather than save lives. Thinking back, however, he wondered if his whole meeting with Helen hadn’t been quite as random as he first thought. Had she somehow known that he would one day develop the idea, and sought him out in order to begin this whole thing? Was that what she’d wanted all along, to set this chain of events into action?

 

No, he couldn’t afford to think like that. New Dawn was going to help people. It was just Matt’s paranoia starting to affect him.

 

~.~

 

The Convergence had begun. The anomalies were opening up around the world at an alarming rate, creatures rampaging through the streets, Jess being unable to keep up with them as she dispatched team after team around the city. Beside him, Connor looked on, horrified, as the news broadcast re-ran the piece of mobile phone footage of a T-Rex eating a pedestrian it had caught in the city streets.

 

Philip could hardly believe it was finally here. All of the planning and developing; it had all been leading up to this day. He could hardly wait to get back to New Dawn and get started.

 

“Come on, Connor; we have work to do.”

 

But Connor didn’t move. Instead, he glanced across with a worried look in his eyes, blurting out something about a problem with the prototype in his lab that he wanted Philip to take a look at. Philip sighed. Matt had got to him, he just knew it. He could see from Connor’s eyes that he was still torn between the two of them, looking unsure even as Philip looked over the machine. This was a distraction, nothing more, for Matt to do whatever he was planning, but still he checked the connections, not letting on that he knew. It was simple to find; Connor had crossed two connections, probably intentionally, and it took a matter of seconds to correct it. He still had hope for Connor, hope that he’d come back to Philip, but for now he would have to let Connor work that out for himself.

 

~.~

 

Two hours later, Philip stood with April in the control room at New Dawn. Connor had gone off to deal with another anomaly that had just opened up a few miles away, insisting that he needed to go and that he would catch up as soon as he could. He had wanted Connor to be at his side, for them to do this together

 

He and April had begun the start up sequences on the machine, going through the initialisation process but a few moments ago, someone had dialled onto a satellite terminal. They were trying to shut the system down.

 

“It’s Connor,” April told him.

 

The anomaly must have been a lie, designed to get away from him in order to sneak back into New Dawn with Matt, Philip thought.

 

“Stop him,” he told April, watching as she turned back to her terminal to remotely shut Connor out. 

 

Philip was not going to let anyone stop this. Not now. New Dawn was within his grasp and he had to prove to them all that they were wrong.

 

~.~

 

Philip was dealing with Connor’s latest attempts to hack in to the system when a noise made him turn toward the door. He saw Matt come storming into the room, a gun aimed directly at Philip as he yelled at him to shut the machines down.

 

Philip shook his head. “You’ve seen it out there; it’s chaos. Creatures are roaming the streets; people are dying.”

 

“That’s what the ARC is for!”

 

Philip glared. “ARC has failed! I’m trying to save them, Matt; why can’t you understand that?”

 

“Because it won’t work. You’re going to kill everything; I’ve seen it!”

 

And so have I, Philip thought, ignoring Matt in favour of shutting Connor out of the system. The kid was brilliant, and he was managing to get around whatever blocks Philip threw into his path but not this time.

 

Two of his guards finally arrived in the room and he instructed them to get hold of Matt, watching as they took the gun from him. Now he could finally get on with this, he thought, pressing the button to start the machine.

 

“Philip, no!”

 

Watching the readouts as the machine powered up, Philip smiled. Behind him, Matt’s protests fell silent, a defeated look on his face.

 

“Cheer up, Matt,” he said. “Everything’s fine. It’s working.” Moving back, he looked at the readouts on the screen in front of him. “Isn’t it just the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in your life?”

 

Matt shook his head. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

 

But Philip did know. The anomalies stopped almost as suddenly as they began, calm returning to the streets. This was what Philip had worked for, or at least part of it. The engineered anomaly in New Dawn was drawing in power at a fantastic rate, the monitors showing results that were better than he had ever expected.

 

Then the news reached them that Connor had fallen through the anomaly whilst attempting to sabotage the machine. Philip’s stomach lurched, a wave of nausea rushing through him. Despite Connor’s defection to Matt’s side, Philip still hadn’t given up on him. He knew that when he had proved that the machine was safe and working as it should, Connor would come back to him, apologised for doubting him.

 

Knowing that he might never see him again was too much to bear. He pushed it to the back of his mind, concentrating on getting the anomaly stable. He had to believe that Connor would be alright. The young man was resilient; if he could survive for a year in the Creteceous, then he would be fine now as well. He would come back through, but only if Philip could keep the anomaly open. If it collapsed then there would be no chance of Connor finding his way home.

 

“At least let me go after him,” Matt pleaded but Philip shook his head.

 

“No one is going until it is stable,” he said.

 

Matt made another break for freedom but his guards held onto him tightly, causing him to turn his anger toward Philip instead.

 

“Did you ever even care about him? That kid worshipped you!”

 

Philip glared. How the hell could he even ask that? He cared about Connor, much more than Matt knew in fact.

 

“Of course I cared and if he’s dead it will be your fault,” he snapped. “Because he would not even have been there if you hadn’t poisoned him against me. The world didn’t end, Matt. You were wrong.”

 

Moments later he had the readings he was looking for: The anomaly was stable. It wouldn’t close if anyone else went through.

 

“Alright, Matt. We’ll go and get him- as I said, I do care about him and I’m coming with you to bring him back.”

 

Matt shook his head, the fight going out of him when he saw that Philip was serious. “No offence, but you’ll slow me down; you haven’t done any field time. I’ll go. Besides, you need to make sure that thing stays open until we get back.”

 

No sooner had Matt left the room, the two guards looking unsure as to whether or not they should be following him, than one of the techs approached with a printout. The anomaly was growing in size faster than any of the simulations had predicted. It should have slowed by now, settled, but it hadn’t. Something was wrong but he just couldn’t see it. He was looking, going through the data from the simulations in search of any discrepancies, running test after test, trying to find a way to stop the anomaly expanding but he still couldn’t find the solution. He wished that Connor was here to talk it though with him-

 

That thought made him pause. What if Matt couldn’t find Connor, or if something had happened to him?

 

Shaking away those thoughts and telling himself that Connor would be fine, Philip turned back to the monitors, frowning when he saw the readouts. That couldn’t be right; a moment ago, everything was functioning perfectly but now… The anomaly was still growing in size, surpassing its original boundaries already. As though to confirm that, an alert began flashing on one of the consoles, the automated voice telling him that the anomaly’s output was reaching dangerous levels.

 

_‘Warning. Warning. Warning’_

 

Suddenly there was tremor, a shockwave that made the room shudder. Everything went dark, the monitors flickering and the lights going out for a moment before emergency power kicked in and everything whirred back to life. He turned to April, but she was nowhere to be seen, having fled already. The rest of the staff had already gone or were in the midst of leaving, and he followed them out as the building trembled, unsure of what else to do.

 

Outside, the sky up above the building was swirling in a mass of colours, the glimmer of an anomaly clearly visible in amongst the debris in the air, and even without his computers and readouts he could see that the mass was still expanding. Even though the shockwave had shut the machines down, the anomaly showed no signs of stopping. And it wouldn’t. He had designed it to be self-sustaining once it was open, made sure that things such as electrical failures wouldn’t destabilise it.  

 

What now? Philip wondered helplessly. Maybe Matt was correct, and this project was going to destroy everything, just not quite how he had predicted. When he’d heard Matt’s stories he had assumed that Matt believed that the machine itself would cause a disaster, but what if it was this anomaly? If it continued to expand, it would consume this world.

 

If he’d listened, maybe he could have prevented this. Instead he’d dismissed Matt’s ramblings as just that and look what it had cost him. He could have destroyed everything and, even worse, he could have lost Connor.

 

~.~

 

Philip wasn’t sure how long he sat there on the metal fire escape, his head in his hands. He couldn’t stop the scenarios racing through his mind, what he could have done differently, things he wished he’d said to Connor, but it was too late for that now. He might as well just sit here and wait for the anomaly to take him, too.

 

“Philip!”

 

At first he thought that the voice was just a daydream, wishful thinking, but there were footsteps too. Looking up he had never felt so relieved in his life. Connor was standing in front of him with Matt and Abby, the three of them dirty and bruised but relatively uninjured.

 

“Connor, you’re alive.”

 

He really was standing there. Philip cast a grateful look toward Matt, unable to convey how truly grateful he was even if he had a thousand years to try.

 

“We need you to help us,” Connor was saying. “Give us the codes so that we can shut it down.”

 

But Philip had already thought of that. “It’s too late. The EM pulse would have fried the data. The codes are useless.”

 

“There must be something!”

 

He did have one idea, actually. When it looked as though he’d lost the one person he actually cared about saving, he had just ignored it. Now he had a reason, and didn’t he owe it to Connor, and Matt and Abby for risking their lives in going through that anomaly to get him back, to try?

 

“There is a possibility,” he said decisively, getting up. As much as he wanted to make sure Connor was alright, to tell him how sorry he was, shutting this anomaly down was their priority right now. “Connor, I need you to go and crash the computer in the turbine room.”

 

Connor nodded and hurried away, Abby going with him as Matt moved to follow Philip. He was surprised that Matt had volunteered to go with him, the two of them being on opposite ends of this fight all along, but he welcomed the gesture.

 

“I can shut this machine down but when I do, there won’t be much left of this building,” he said as he and Matt entered the control room. “You need to leave, Matt.”

 

“Can’t we just shut it down and make a run for it?”

 

Philip shook his head. “When I take the last system off line it will be like… slamming the brakes on an aircraft travelling at five hundred miles per hour.”

 

“Everything in here will be vaporised, including you, Philip.”

 

He already knew that, but this was his fault and he had to fix it. “I know.” He quickly told Matt where to find Emily, where his guards had locked her to keep her contained and out of the way, before asking, “Can you tell Connor something for me? Tell him that I love him, and that I’m sorry.”

 

Matt looked slightly confused but he nodded anyway, leaving Philip alone in the room. Shutting down each system in sequence, he wanted nothing more than to turn and flee as everyone else had but he didn’t, standing his ground as he hesitated over the last one.

 

An idea struck him then; it was a long-shot but he had to try it. Hurrying to the final terminal still operational, his fingers flew over the keyboard, praying that the file he needed would still allow him to access it. It was protected and so it should have survived…

 

~.~

 

 _“Self destruction sequence initiated,”_ the automated voice announced and he knew it was now or never. He had thirty seconds, the longest time that the self destruct programme would allow him to enter. It wasn’t long, but he didn’t intend to run through the whole of the building.

 

~.~

 

When the building imploded, the countdown ending seconds earlier than he had estimated in his head, he had barely made it off the fire escape. The shockwave knocked him off his feet, throwing him painfully hard against the ground with debris raining down onto him. Curling himself around, arms over his head, he tried to protect himself from the worst of it. His last thought before losing consciousness was that he hoped that the others had made it out safely.

 

~.~

 

It was still and quiet when he next opened his eyes, the air dust-filled and thick, and someone was gently rolling him onto his back. Fingers pressed to the pulse point on his throat, checking.

 

“Philip? Can you hear me? Oh God, please wake up.”

 

He tried, really he did, but even opening his eyes a tiny crack, letting in the bright light, sent sharp pains through his head. His throat felt clogged with the dust he’d breathed in, making him cough but just that movement made every part of his body hurt; he felt as though the building had collapsed on top of him.

 

“Philip?”

 

Connor. That was Connor’s voice. For him, Philip could force his eyes open.

 

“Oh thank goodness! Someone help me get him up, would you?”

 

Though everything was still foggy, he heard the whisper from someone nearby suggesting that they just leave him here after all he’d done, and then Connor’s voice.

 

“Well then you can leave me here too because I’m not going anywhere without him.”

 

Matt’s face came into view as he crouched down, looking across to Connor.

 

“I’ll help. He might have built the thing but he was ready to die to stop it.”

 

The two men managed to get him upright, then to his feet with an arm around each of their shoulders to steady himself. As he took a step, a burning pain speared through his left leg and he glanced down to see the dark blood on his trousers.

 

“Hey, Philip, don’t look at that, ok?” Connor told him. “It’s not too bad; we can get it treated when we get you to a hospital.”

 

“Connor, I-“

 

“I know,” Connor said, shifting his hold until he could press a kiss to Philip’s lips.

 

The others stared, Matt’s features quirking in a faint smile; this alone was worth his efforts to escape, worth all of the pain he was feeling at the moment. Especially when he realised that this was the first time that Connor had shown him affection in public. Aside from his message to Matt earlier, none of the others had known anything about their relationship until this point.

 

“What did you do?” Philip asked, curious. “How did you stop it?”

 

Connor smiled. “Turns out that if you let a nutter drive a car that’s carrying a mini anomaly into the big one, it shuts them both down.”

 

Philip frowned, trying to decipher Connor-speak for what they’d done, as Matt let out an offended protest. Philip smiled; presumably, he would be the aforementioned nutter.

 

“I’ll tell you later,” Connor promised.

 

Connor stumbled slightly and Becker came over to them, lifting Philip’s arm off Connor’s shoulder and draping it over his own instead, taking Connor’s place.

 

“Let me. You look as though you’re about to pass out yourself.”

 

They all stood in silence for a moment, looking at the scene of devastation where the New Dawn building had previously stood. Now, there was nothing but a crater and pile of rubble. Suddenly, Becker frowned as though remembering something.

 

“Wait, what about my truck?” At the snigger from Matt, and the lack of response from the others, Becker grumbled, “Of course. We’ll just walk back to the ARC.” He sighed. “I liked that truck.”

 

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Philip promised, making Becker smile at him. For what they’d all just done they deserved so much more but that would be a start.

 

“Come on,” Abby said as they began their slow walk across the car park, heading for the road. “The comms are still fried so we can’t call for a lift, which means we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

 

“Bollocks to that,” Becker said. “The next vehicle we come across is getting commandeered.”

 

~.~

 

During the trip back to the ARC -in a stolen Transit van that Becker had spotted in a car park and Matt had hot-wired- Philip let his mind wander. He had known about the convergence from his time, known about the multiple anomalies and the chaos it had caused, but there had been one crucial piece of information missing from the history books in his own time. Matt had known all along; the convergence was supposed to happen. It wasn’t until he heard them talking, Emily asking Matt if it had been allowed to continue for long enough before the machine had stopped it, that it had hit him.

 

He thought that stopping it would fix things, that what had happened in his time needed stopping, that _it_ was the problem. He thought that because everything was alright in his time, that the future would be fine too; it had never occurred to him that he wasn’t supposed to stop the convergence but rather let it run its course.

 

Philip knew that if he’d had all of the information then he would have done things differently, but that was the trouble; in his time, records of the convergence were all about the aftermath and not the cause. Well, that was one thing he could do to prevent future generations from trying to do the same as he had.

 

Something still puzzled him, however. Was it the expanding man-made anomaly or stopping the convergence that destroyed the world in Matt’s time? Or was it both, seeing as one was a side effect of the other?

 

Philip sighed; it was making his head hurt just trying to work it out. One thing was for sure, though, he intended to destroy all records and data from New Dawn to prevent anyone else from discovering it and trying to resurrect the project. He couldn’t take that risk.

 

~.~

 

Philip watched the reunion at the ARC as Lester was brought in, his wheelchair pushed in by Becker, Jess barely leaving his side for more than a second. He wasn’t a part of this, still didn’t feel completely welcome here despite Matt’s coming to his defence earlier and Becker offering to help him. He had almost caused the destruction of the human race: How could they ever forgive him for that?

 

His doubt was reinforced when Lester noticed him, glaring as though wondering why the hell Philip was there, but he didn’t voice the thought and, for that, Philip was grateful. He should have stayed at the hospital once they’d stitched his leg and bandaged him up, let Connor come back here with the others. But, Connor had asked him to come to the ARC and so he had, even though his leg hurt and he had to use a walking stick, and he knew that he wouldn’t be welcome. Glancing back at him, Connor sighed, moving to his side and sliding a hand into his, leading him into the room and toward everyone else, trying to include him. Matt pulled over a chair for him to sit down, the pair of them standing at either side of him as though defending him against whatever negative reactions the others may have to his presence.

 

“I take it we won, then?” Lester said, looking around at his team proudly, before focusing on Matt. “Guess this means we’re stuck with you now?”

 

Matt smiled. “I guess it does.”

 

“I think we should keep the whole ‘man from the future’ thing between ourselves,” Lester continued. “The minister is confused enough as it is.”

 

Philip pushed himself out of his chair, leaning against the desk next to him and assuring Connor that he was alright. After everything, he owed them all this much.

 

“Make that ‘ _men_ from the future’,” he said. “I think there’s something you all ought to know…”

 

 


End file.
